


A Man Who Might Have Been

by keeponshouting



Series: To Be Wild [1]
Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-15
Updated: 2013-04-15
Packaged: 2017-12-08 13:34:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 586
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/761903
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/keeponshouting/pseuds/keeponshouting
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He runs away from home so many times that he's known for it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Man Who Might Have Been

**Author's Note:**

> Wrote this quite a while back now for a modern AU I'm working on with a couple of friends. Short and bittersweet.

He runs away from home so many times that he's known for it. To be honest, the long term officers at the precinct are as impatient as he is for the day that he turns eighteen. They pick him up on the side of the road, squatting in the woods, hiding in someone's barn, sleeping in a trash bin. If he could get far enough away, maybe it wouldn't matter, maybe they'd give up, maybe his parents would finally count him for dead. It's not as if they count him for much more than that either way but there are benefits that come with having a dependent and they haven't quite used him for all that he's worth.  
  
It's one month, three days, and some hours change before his birthday when he packs for the last time. He has a black eye, a split lip, and two broken fingers that he's splinted together on his own after too much practice but he hasn't washed the blood from his chin or his nose. His bag fills up with the things he needs most, like his notebook and his art supplies and his latest refills of meds. In his wallet he has $2000 that he's been saving for the past four years instead of eating full meals at school or buying anything for himself that doesn't come from a thrift store and he steals another $100 from the canister his parents keep hidden on top of the fridge, another $130 from the stash in his parents' wardrobe, another $20 from under the floor mat of his father's car. The whiskey and the vodka and the half bottle of rum he takes for good measure and petty vengeance. They owe him much more than that, after all.  
  
Plus, the train yard isn't a long walk away.  
  
There's a kid at school he used to run with sometimes whose cousin told them stories about how he and his friends went freight hopping one summer, until they got caught and ticketed. That was where he got the idea to start with. The fact that it was viable and he had easy access is what ultimately sold him on the thought.  
  
He doesn't care where it's going and that's the beauty of the thing. Camped by the side out, he can pick and choose as he pleases. It's late, dark, by the time he gets the guts to go for it. Then he's climbed inside of a coal car and the sky is moving and he's leaving his whole life behind.  
  
How he's so lucky that he doesn't get caught or beaten or worse is beyond him. Two years and he's made friends. Three years and the rails are home. He takes odd jobs where he can get them, sells sketches and paintings on the streets. Four years and he's seen the country. Five and he thinks he'll settle down.  
  
At the age of twenty-three, he stops moving so frequently. The place he chooses to call home has its "bum" part of town. He finds jobs that aren't contracts, keeps a house that he squats in, leeches electric from the main lines, siphons water from city pipes. "Off the grid," some might call it. "Living free" are his words. He has no legal records, doesn't exist in the real world. Not that the real world has ever done him any good so that's fine by him.  
  
He is Grantaire. Capital R. R. Period.  
  
A ghost of a man who might have been.


End file.
